Better Rugby Rules

Source: Wallabies go toe-to-toe with rival codes– Greg Growden

But it is after the Super season that rugby will have a critical effect on the other Australian football codes, with the Tri Nations being deliberately pushed back to the August-October period, enabling Australian rugby to have a major presence when the rugby league and Australian football seasons are reaching their finals crescendo.

Australian Rugby Union officials have been concerned that for well over a decade the code was all but dormant when the NRL and AFL seasons were at their peak. That has now changed because their finals series will coincide with the Tri Nations, and Bledisloe Cup fixtures will even be scheduled after the completion of the league and AFL seasons.

SANZAR has agreed that the Tri Nations will always start in South Africa. Australia will host the opening Bledisloe Cup in early September and the Tri Nations will always finish with two Bledisloe Cup fixtures.

COMMENTS:WTF ! The FIRST Bledisloe Cup match every year will be held in AUSSIE ! Did Mr Tew CEO NZRU leave the meeting with any carrots at all, or was he so in love with CEO ARU John ONeill that he was a ‘YES MAN’ to ‘every thing’ the Aussie wanted. I do not doubt that more exposure to rugby in Aussie is better for rugby in NZ, as they have more money (no doubt they will want our players in the years to come ), but I remember the old All Blacks manager ‘John Graham’ said that professional rugby will destroy the game in NZ and be very good for Aussie, he has proved to be mostly correct.  NZ will be 5 union strong hold forever, the other unions need not turn up at the NZRU meetings.

UPDATE: Source: Aussie to host Bledisloe Opener

The Australian Rugby Union has snatched an early Bledisloe Cup victory, even if it wasn’t claiming it.

Buried amid the detailed Super rugby expansion deal and revamped Tri-Nations series was confirmation that Australia would host game one of the three-test Bledisloe Cup series every year from 2011.

It would be a fixed early September date, aside from World Cup years when it would be played earlier.

The second test would be in New Zealand a month later in early October, with the third test the following weekend, alternating between the two countries year by year.

ARU deputy chief executive Matt Carroll insisted he and his boss John O’Neill hadn’t got one over their Tasman rivals.

“That was a mutual decision, a decision supported both ways. New Zealand quite like the idea of the set dates as well and they saw the value they would get, because they will have two test matches in a row in New Zealand every second year,” Carroll told reporters today.

COMMENTS: Do you need more proof that Mr Steve Tew (CEO NZRU) is an idiot, why give away the first game home ground, that removes the ‘ambush’ chance you need if you side is on weak side and home advantage is needed first up. Tew saw the money first, rugby logic second. Also having THREE Bledisloe Cup games every year, what a bore, if you have the cup that means its harder to lose it. Smell the motive here do you, more money, they think. I think the rugby saturation will bore the public to tears.